There is an old French adage that goes “one must suffer to be beautiful.” I don’t know much about that, but I would posit that one certainly must suffer to be truly cool. Everything in this world worth experiencing has a bit of a hard edge to it, a thing you have to give up to get it. That’s how cool is built. And if you’re giving up air conditioning, premium audio, sound deadening, and interior trim, to regularly cane this Ferrari F355 Challenge, you’re almost certainly one-hundred percent authentically cool. There aren’t many who would give up all that to chase clout.
All Ferrari 348 Challenge and most early 355 Challenge race cars were delivered as street-legal cars with full legal VINs. These would have been shipped to a dealer without carpet and with reinforced cage mount locations, with a “Challenge Kit” delivered for the dealer to convert the car to full series specifications. Because it has a VIN and was a full series production car when it was built, this ex-racer is still eligible to be registered for the street. Allegedly just 108 examples were built for worldwide consumption.
You can see in the interior photos that this is a pretty stripped down driving experience. With a full cage inside, you’ll want to don a brain bucket for every road trip or drive to the grocery store. There’s very little inside to stop the reverberations or sounds of rocks pinging against the underside of the chassis. But you have plenty of gauges to keep apprised of the 3.5-liter V8 singing away behind you. And easy access to all of the fuses and relays. There’s something to be said for that.
Is it worth it? Well, this exact car has been on Bring A Trailer three times. Back in 2018 it failed to meet reserve with bids up to $75,000. In 2020, at the height of the market, it found a buyer at $88,000. Considering the market for full-fat street F355s is typically over 100,000 American dollars, this could be a decent way to drive one without spending the biggest bucks. If you are willing to suffer a little bit for your coolness, the 355 Challenge could be your new V8 Ferrari daily with a discount. The original interior isn’t anything to write home about anyway.
Buy it. Don’t be a coward.